What the Redhead Wants
by Kips34
Summary: The pack thinks they know everything there is to know about Bella 'leech-lover' Swan. They are about to find out just how wrong they are. ONE-SHOT


**What the Redhead Wants**

Bella sits quietly on the bottom step of the stairs, safely out of the way of the pack as they gather around Emily's kitchen table, digging in to her breakfast spread with animalistic fervor, slowly picking at a small blueberry muffin.

After Paul phased, and Jacob defended her, Sam went after the two of them, and everyone else made their way to Sam and Emily's place. None of the others hated her the way Paul seemed to, but they still saw her as the 'leech lover'. None of them knew the first thing about vampire society, and so they couldn't begin to understand what she'd been through or why she'd done what she had, so Bella could hardly fault them for the way they treated her. They didn't know any better…

Suddenly Sam came through the front door, quickly making his way to Emily's side, kissing her passionately, much to the humorous displeasure of Jared and Embry.

Paul and Jacob followed him through the door, and took the remaining seats at the table, seeming to fit perfectly into place. Both shot her apologetic glances, much to her confusion, but neither spoke to her.

When Sam finally turned away from Emily, he shot her a quick glance before turning to his pack. "Jacob has information for us," he said simply, beginning the informal pack meeting, and turning everyone's attention to Jacob.

"Right," Jacob muttered, setting down his forkful of food with a heavy sigh, "I know what the redhead wants," he began, ready to explain, but was cut off by an irritated outburst across the table.

"Then why the hell didn't you say so earlier?!" Jared growled, clearly believing that Jacob had withheld vital information from the rest of the pack.

"I only just found out this morning," Jacob defended himself.

"And I literally tried to bite his head off when he tried to tell us," Paul added somewhat guiltily, again shooting Bella a look of apology.

But Jared wasn't derailed in the slightest. "If you had important information to share," he continued to rail, "then why would you bring that bitch with you?!," he gestured vaguely in Bella's direction, where she still sat silently at the base of the stairs, "You had to know the leech-lover being there would piss some people off."

Jacob stood from his chair, his fists clenched and his arms vibrating in his fury, "Don't talk about her like that!"

"Jake, he has a point," Embry put in calmly, trying to de-escalate the situation before someone phased inside the house.

"Embry!" Jacob was completely aghast, horrified that his best friend might agree with Jared's cruel words, but his surprise also slowed his tremors and eased his temper somewhat, "You know her. How could you…"

Embry quickly clarified, "I just meant he was right that bringing her along was bound to cause some tension; that's all. No offense, Bella," he added, seeming to suddenly remember they were having this fight with her still in the room.

"None taken," she whispered, staring intently at the muffin in her lap, not meeting anyone's eyes.

No one acknowledged her words as Jacob continued to argue, "Did you expect me to leave her alone, while the entire pack was meeting, with the bloodsucker still out there?!"

Now Jared was standing as well, looking equally livid, "Why the hell would it matter if you did?! The little corpse-whore would probably love to…"

"Enough!" Sam roared, ending their argument. He turned to Jacob and said as calmly as he could manage, "Jacob, tell them what you told me. Now," his words laced with the power of an alpha order.

"The redhead," he began through gritted teeth, still glaring at Jared, "is here to kill Bella."

All the anger that had boiled up in Jared's features was gone in an instant. There were a million different ideas running through his mind as to what information Jacob might have for them, but never in a million years would he have considered this. None of them had.

"What?" Jared asked, not truly believing what he had just heard. Bella Swan was the vampire girl, the leech-lover. She had allied herself with the Cullens for goodness sake. Why would the redhead want her dead?

Jacob looked straight into his pack brother's eyes and repeated as calmly as he could manage, "The vampire we have been hunting for weeks, the redhead who we keep chasing away, but can never seem to catch, the leech who keeps coming back to our land over and over again… She is here to kill Bella. That's why she keeps coming back, why she seems to be more interested in getting by us to Forks than actually fighting us, or feeding on the Res. She is here for Bella."

Throughout Jacob's short explanation, Bella never raised her eyes from the muffin in her hands, her face a perfect, blank, emotionless mask. Emily was staring at her wide-eyed, horrified that she was in this position, even if the pack had every reason to dislike the girl. The rest of the pack was too shocked to speak, with the obvious exceptions of Sam and Paul who had heard this already.

Finally, Embry spoke up quietly, "Bella?" he spoke, trying to catch her eye.

She met his confused gaze and as he looked into her now unguarded eyes for the first time in months, the young wolf saw a well of pain and fear there he never expected. She didn't say a word for a long moment and only when Emily asked the pained question, "Why?" did she let out a long breath and turn to the rest of the pack.

"It's a bit of a long story," she told them honestly, her voice still subdued and quiet.

"We've got nowhere to be Swan," Paul said, fighting a smirk. She was growing more and more confused by his behavior by the second. Didn't Paul hate her? Hadn't he just phased, not an hour ago, to try and kill her?

Sam sighed and dragged another seat to the table. He sat down and pulled Emily into his lap before he said, "Everyone, get comfortable. Something tells me we may be here awhile," he then turned to Bella and said firmly, "We need to know everything. It's time you told us what's going on."

She met his gaze before letting her eyes fall to the floor, "I don't even know where to start," she admitted. The last year had been entirely too much for her. Too much danger. Too many secrets. Too much pain and violence. How could she explain this to them?

Sam looked thoughtful for a moment before answering her, "We need to know who the redhead is, and why she wants you dead. Start there."

Bella thought that made a lot of sense, but that didn't mean talking about this was going to be easy for her. "Her name is Victoria," she told them, "I don't know her last name. I'm actually not even sure if she uses one anymore. She is a nomad so she doesn't exactly need one."

The wolves were exchanging confused glances as she spoke, but it was Jacob who asked the question, "What do you mean by a 'nomad'?"

Bella actually laughed at that, "Sorry. I forget sometimes how little you all must know about vampires," she began, shaking her head slightly at the thought of vampire hunters who knew nothing about how the majority of vampires lived, "Large covens like the Cullens are rare, and animal-drinking covens even more so. Most vampires don't interact with humans at all unless they're planning to feed from them or turn them. So things like last names, jobs, permanent residences… these things quickly become a foreign concept to most vampires. Victoria is like that. She would travel from city to city with her companions, feeding. A nomad is a vampire, usually alone or just traveling with one or two others, who has no home territory and never stops moving."

Having only ever interacted with the Cullens, the pack was surprised by this new information, and more than one found themselves wondering what other tidbits Bella might have for them about their enemy…

"So, Victoria," Jared began to ask, his face twisted with disgust at referring to the leech by her name, "She's alone then?"

"No," Bella answered quickly, "Or at least she didn't use to be. She was a part of Laurent's coven."

"Laurent?" Embry asked, sounding confused.

Right, Bella thought, they don't know any of these people by names. She thought the wolves probably didn't even know all of the Cullen's names, which was truly sad all things considered. "You all saw him," she told them, her eyes distant as she remembered that disastrous encounter in the woods, "In the meadow. I never did get to thank you for that; you all saved my life." She paused before asking, "Do you know if he's returned since that day?"

Embry barked a laugh, "The leech with the dreads?" he asked, and when Bella nodded he told her, "He's dead."

"Dead?" she parroted, confused for a moment. Then realization hit her and she looked around at the wolves gathered in the small kitchen with a new sense of awe, "You, all of you, killed Laurent?"

"Tore him apart and burned him to ash," Paul confirmed smirking.

"We're protectors Bells," Jacob continued, "Killing vampires and keeping humans safe is sort of what we do around here."

And Bella actually smiled, surprising all the wolves. They would have thought the leech-lover would have been upset that this Laurent guy was dead. Instead, she looked so relieved.

"Thank God," the words fell from her lips as her eyes closed and a single tear ran down her cheek, "I thought he was… I've been waiting every night for him to…"

Her voice trailed off, but it was very clear to everyone there she was not upset in the slightest over his death. It was Jacob that realized first what she meant, "You've been waiting for him to come back for you? To finish what he started in the meadow?"

"You can say it Jake," she laughed dryly, "I've been waiting for him to return to kill me. I just prayed that when he came he would be satisfied with me and leave Charlie alive," she finished in a pained whisper, and the rest of the wolves seemed to finally understand the depth of her fear.

"He is gone now," Sam assured her, his voice thick with emotion, surprised to find himself feeling incredible sympathy for the girl before him, "You and your father are safe."

"Ha!" Bella rolled her eyes, quickly drying her tears as she reminded them all why she was there in the first place, "Hardly. Laurent may be dead, but Victoria is still hunting me."

Emily spoke up for the first time since she began her explanation, "Why is she after you? I still don't understand."

"She needs to make someone pay for the death of her mate, and she believes I am at least partially to blame because he was trying to kill me when he died, so I make the perfect target for her grief and rage," Bella explained, sounding incredibly tired.

Paul looked horrified, "But we killed Laurent? Why wouldn't she just come after us?"

"Laurent was not her mate, Paul," she patiently explained, leaning back against the stairs, her eyes falling shut in her exhaustion as she came to another realization, "Though I have no doubt that his mate, Irina, and her coven will want to tear you all apart when they find out you killed him… Victoria's mate was a tracker named James. The Cullens killed him last year."

Sam and Jared exchanged at a look when she winced at the name Cullen, as if it were physically painful for her to think of them. Perhaps there was more to her story than they had been led to believe…

But it was Jacob that spoke, again asking for clarification on her use of vampire terminology, "He was a tracker? Can't all vampires track humans? They are hunters by nature after all."

"There are two different kinds of trackers beyond what you would usually see in a normal vampire," Bella told him, "The first is a gifted vampire whose special ability allows them to know where a specific person is at any given time, even if there is no scent trail to follow," she explained, thinking of the Volturi's tracker, Demitri, "The second is a vampire who targets humans protected by other vampires, for the thrill of a more difficult hunt. James was like that. Honestly, he was a sadistic bastard…"

Sam's eyes widened considerably as she spoke, first at the thought that Bella had had dealings with these types of monsters, and then at her unexpected description for James. He had never heard her curse, and Jacob's memories of her never lent themselves to that sort of language, not that he didn't completely agree with her. "So this James wanted to kill you?" he asked and continued when she nodded silently, "Because you were under the 'protection' of the Cullens?"

"Yes," she breathed, "He had never challenged a coven so large as theirs and he was excited by the challenge they presented. Plus, once he caught my scent, he couldn't resist. I'm fairly sure at this point he would have hunted me when he passed through the area even if I had never met the Cullens."

"Why?" Embry asked confused, "Don't all humans smell essentially the same to them?"

"You have no idea how much I wish that were true Embry," she answered him, leaning forward, rubbing her temples, "I'm a blood singer…"

"Um Bells?" Jacob spoke up again, sounding totally lost, "What the hell is a blood singer?"

"La tua cantante," Bella spoke the foreign words lightly, letting out a long breath as she contemplated how best to explain this.

"Go ahead Bells," Jacob encouraged.

"A vampire's thirst is somewhat like a drug addict in desperate need of a fix. It's a constant burn in their throats that they can't ignore for long, and the longer they go without feeding, the worse the pain becomes. I suppose it's sort of like insane withdrawal symptoms. So resisting the urge to feed when they smell blood of any kind is incredibly difficult, especially if it's human blood, and especially if it's been more than a few days since they last fed," she paused for a long moment while they absorbed this, her eyes pulled together in deep thought.

"You'll have to excuse the analogy here, but I can't think of any other way to explain this," Bella told them when she finally continued, "So, let's say a vampire is an alcoholic. Most of them are relatively high functioning, but the need to drink is always there, and the more they drink, the harder it is to resist, like a vicious cycle that most alcoholics deal with."

Paul knew exactly what she was describing there; he'd seen it first hand with both of his parents growing up. And in a sick, twisted way, it made sense to him as an accurate way of looking at their enemies. But he was very surprised to find that when he met Bella's eyes again, he could see that she was lost in a memory, same as him. She knew a thing or two about this too…

"But with age," she suddenly began speaking again, shaking free of her own thoughts, "they can learn enough control to keep to a more regular feeding schedule. Blood will always be tempting to them, but they can resist enough not to lose control. Animal drinkers are a prime example of that, though they struggle with it just as much, and they still… slip from time to time."

"Slip?" Sam shuddered as he asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"That's what they called it," Bella whispered, clearly upset, "When one of them would lose control and attack a human. They called it a 'slip', like it was just some minor mistake they could apologize for and move on. It's sick, the way they distance themselves from the horror of it by calling it that."

Bella had squeezed her eyes shut tight, as if to ward off the images that filled her mind in that moment, but they came all the same, and her silent tears began to fall. Those four men in Port Angeles screaming and clawing at Edward uselessly as he beat them and drained them dry in that alley right in front of her. They had meant to rape her, possibly even kill her. They were monsters and she hated them for trying to hurt her, but she wouldn't have wished that on them, on anyone. No one deserved to die like that…

It was in that moment that the wolves realized everything they thought they knew about Bella Swan was wrong. She didn't love the Cullens, or any other vampire for that matter. They frightened and disturbed her as much as they did everyone else who knew the truth. But then why had she been with Edward? Had he been threatening her, or Charlie? Had she been in need of the pack's help even back then, and they had all turned a blind eye because they believed that she was on the Cullen's side? The thought that those monsters might have hurt her right under the pack's noses made Sam feel physically ill.

"So," Paul broke the uncomfortable silence, trying to get the conversation back on track, "The Cullens are like recovering alcoholics then?" he asked, forcing a dry chuckle. It had the desired effect as Bella couldn't resist the tiny smile as she met his gaze.

"Something like that," she responded.

"I'm still not sure I understand what you mean by a blood singer," Emily admitted, reminded them all why they were on this train of conversation in the first place.

Bella sighed before answering her as best she could, "If animal blood has the appeal of stale beer left out in the sun for too long, and human blood is like an ice cold Coors, it's pretty obvious which the alcoholic is going to prefer. But like I said, older, more controlled vampires, as long as they feed regularly, they can resist downing the Coors. A blood singer like me though, is nearly impossible to resist. I guess I'd be an extremely expensive, rare vintage or a 70-year-old Scotch malt. They call us blood singers because our blood literally calls to them, drawing them to us like a magnet.

The Cullens were hard pressed not to kill me most of the time, and as animal drinkers they were extremely in control of their thirst compared to most vampires. When James caught my scent, he was drawn in immediately. He didn't even try to resist the desire to hunt me. The fact that there was a large coven standing in the way was just an added bonus for him."

Jacob's eyes looked about ready to pop out of his skull as he responded, "So you're a walking, talking leech magnet? And this James tracker guy and his little coven attacked you? And the Cullens killed him for trying to kill you? But Victoria blames you instead of the ones that actually killed him? That's insane!"

"That's my life," she told him, sounding exhausted, "You don't have to tell me how nuts it is. I live it every day."

"But if the Cullens killed James for attacking you," Sam began, his brow furrowed, "Why didn't they deal with Victoria and Laurent back then? They certainly had the numbers…"

"It's complicated…" Bella hedged, not wanting to explain her 'relationship' to the Cullens to the wolves.

"I'm sure we can keep up, Swan," Paul countered.

So she told them. She told them everything. Everything from how she met the Cullens, to Edward's initial reaction to her scent, to his stalking her every move and watching her sleep at night, to Jacob spilling the tribe secrets and her piecing together the truth, to Tyler's van nearly killing her in the school lot, to that disastrous night in Port Angeles where she watched Edward kill for the first time and then had to sit beside him in the restaurant for hours terrified. She told them about how controlling he and Alice, and really the whole coven had been with her. She told them about the times Edward had grabbed her tightly enough to leave bruises, the times he threatened her or Charlie, the times he had out right hit her. She told them about her research and her planning and the horrible birthday party that had finally driven Edward to make the rest of them stay away from her. And she told them her suspicions about Edward's plans to return and feed from her someday.

She told them everything, and by the time she had finished her horrible tale almost three hours later, the wolves were thoroughly ashamed of the way they had thought of her, only hours before. She was easily one of the strongest people any of them had ever met.

"We will keep you safe," Sam vowed solemnly, "We will keep Victoria from hurting you, and if the Cullens ever return for you, we will kill them as well."

"You don't have to be afraid anymore honey," Jacob promised, pulling the emotionally exhausted Bella into his arms.

"We will catch the redhead, and destroy her," Paul promised seriously.

"You can't catch her the way you would an ordinary nomad," Bella warned them, "She's an escape artist of sorts. James was a tracker, and when a tracker isn't hunting humans or enemy vampires, they like to test themselves, find ways to improve their skills and hone their gifts. Victoria was the perfect mating paradox."

"What's a mating paradox?" Jared interrupted her, looking confused again.

Bella looked up at him and couldn't help the snort the escaped her at his facial expression, which was perfectly mirrored on the faces of the rest of the group. "Seriously, how can you guys call yourselves 'leech killers'," she began, imitating Paul's deep timbre, while accenting her comment with sarcastic air quotes, "If you really don't know the first thing about the 'leeches' you're meant to be killing?"

"We know more than enough Swan," Jared argued, sounding somewhat offended, "After all we had no problem killing Laurent."

"A single, ungifted vampire, alone, in unfamiliar territory, who hadn't fed in days, against five wolves. Oh yes, that definitely proves you know exactly what you're doing," Bella countered sarcastically, growing a little frustrated with his overconfidence. They wanted to help her, to protect her, but if they went into this blindly, they'd get hurt, or even killed, and she didn't want that. And honestly, after sharing her story with them, she was so emotionally raw that she was lashing out a little.

"Chase them, tear them to pieces, burn them to ash. It's not overly complicated," Jared continued to argue with her, "We know everything we need to know to kill them."

"So you know that vampires are exponentially stronger, faster, and more vicious in the first year after they're turned?" Bella began, tired of this wolf thinking he was invincible. She returned his glare evenly as she continued, frustrated, "And I'm sure you know that ancient vampires have skin like thin paper, covering limbs that are hundreds of times more dense than younger vampires, making them nearly impossible to rip apart, much less burn? Do you know that at least half of all known vampires have supernatural gifts that might be used in a fight? For God's sake, the Cullens alone had three powerful gifted members, one of whom was a Southern Warlord, and you let them camp out right under your noses… You know nothing Jared."

All five of the wolves were staring at her as if she had grown three heads. They couldn't wrap their heads around her outburst, her fear, her frustration, her anger. It almost sounded like she hated vampires as much as they did, though having heard her story they knew she had more than enough reason to.

And it was obvious in that moment that she did have far more information about their enemies than they would have thought. But none of them knew what to say to her. Jared was opening and closing his mouth like a fish, unable to form a coherent reply.

It was Emily that spoke up when she realized all the guys were completely gob smacked, "So you know a fair bit more about vampires than the rest of us. That much is obvious, even if they don't like to admit it. So tell us what you know. You can't fight Victoria, they can. They don't know the first thing about what vampires are really like beyond the extremely limited encounters they've had over the last year and some basics in tribal lore. You can share your knowledge to make them better fighters, and they can fight to keep you safe from enemies you could never defeat on your own. Let us help you."

And looking around the room at the faces of the tribe's protectors, Bella realized that Emily was right. These guys used to be normal, human teenagers without a care in the world, and maybe they weren't prepared for what they were really signing up for in agreeing to help her, but they were warriors now, and she would help them to learn everything they could. And they would keep her safe.

At least then, maybe, everything she had suffered with the Cullens would mean something…


End file.
